


put your mark on my soul, show me you need me

by Areiton



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, POV Alternating, POV Second Person, Peter Hale Needs a Hug, Soulmates, Steter Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 02:39:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17092496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: Soulmarks appear in time of need. Not yours--your soulmate’s. When they needed you, the mark would bloom on your skin in inky black, a puzzle piece that left tiny clues to the person fate chose for you.





	put your mark on my soul, show me you need me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wynnebat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/gifts).



> Ok, couple things:   
> Happy holidays, @crownwithoutStones I hope you like this. I was gonna do this time travel sugar daddy thing--but then I saw this prompt in the Steter discord that wouldn't leave me alone and this soulmates thing happened instead.   
> I realized after I finished it that it isn't holiday related at all. Oops? I HOPE YOU LIKE IT ANYWAY!!!!

i. 

 

This is what you know about soulmates: there are no guarantees. 

Oh, there is more, but after almost sixteen years, that’s what your takeaway is. 

Soulmarks appear in time of need. Not yours--your soulmate’s. When they  _ needed _ you, the mark would bloom on your skin in inky black, a puzzle piece that left tiny clues to the person fate chose for you. 

Most people had three or four soulmarks. 

Most people had soulmarks--79.7%--by the age of nineteen. 

Another 6.3% would never meet their soulmate and their soulmarks faded to ashy grey, ghostly white. 

That left 14% of the population who got their soulmarks in their twenties, a number that dropped drastically the older they got. 

Less than .001% of the population didn’t have any soulmarks. 

You look at your unmarked skin, skin that doesn’t scar and bears no marks, white or black, and think--you always did like to stand out. 

~*~ 

Talia gets her first mark when you are four and she’s fifteen, a scattering of glass that looks so sharp against her skin that you think it might cut you. She stares at it, fascinated, for hours while she rocks you in her lap and whispers about the soulmarks you’ll have one day and you are young enough that you still believe her. 

~*~ 

You get used to your blank skin. You take lovers to your bed, and ignore the way they look at you, something sad--worse is the ones with pity--in their eyes, and fuck them until there is nothing but pleasure. 

You don’t touch their soulmarks, but you can’t help but memorize them. 

A star exploding on the hip of the girl whose virginity you took. 

A tree fallen in a river across the back of the boy who gave you your first blow job. 

A smattering of gunshells on the collarbone of a pretty blonde you fuck in a club bathroom. 

A spider in delicate detail, tucked in one girl’s elbow. A starburst of light shining through an open window. A pencil discarded with a crumpled piece of paper. Wisps of smoke and tire tracks and tangled IV lines--you see them all and things you never expect and sometimes, after they’ve left your bed and you storm through the world, you wonder what they meant. 

What those stories told. 

And wonder why you get no stories of your own. 

~*~ 

You are eight when Talia leaves home, taking her tremulous protection with her, and your Alpha turns all his fury and resentment on you. 

The first time you lay in the forest, where you collapse after running from him, nursing your wounds and shaking, you hope that your soulmate knows you need them. 

~*~ 

Christopher Argent is a soul like you and not. 

His skin is pristine and clear, empty of all soulmarks, and his eyes are cold and hard, the same defensiveness you see in the mirror, and you stare at him when you are sprawled naked in his hotel bed. 

He is a hunter and dangerous and your sister would rip your throat out for even considering it--but he is the only person you’ve ever met like you, and maybe he isn’t your soulmate, maybe he could never be--but he is  _ alike _ enough that you push that aside, push aside his family name and the scent of gunpowder and wolfsbane and draw him into a kiss that feels almost hopeful. 

~*~ 

You live with your alpha, for another five years before Talia comes home, and when she does--you greet her, pale and bright eyed and hopeful and she smiles at you. 

She touches your cheek and calls you pup and you think--she has to know. She  _ has _ to know. 

But her skin is a wash of color and she clutches a pretty boy’s hand and your alpha watches with a warm smile and a cold gleam in his eyes and your gaze skates over his ashy soulmarks and you think--maybe it’s better to be unmarked. 

She leaves you there, and you slip a bit of wolfsbane in his drink and run before he can hit you. 

~*~

Chris marries Victoria Argent. 

He kisses you once, before he does, and murmurs, “I hope you find them.” 

It’s the first time he’s ever mentioned the soulmate you no longer believe you have, and you almost hate him for it, would hate him but for the gentle look in his eyes. 

“I hope you do,” you whisper. 

~*~ 

Your alpha dies when you are sixteen and Talia is newly married, and sometimes, when she looks at you, her eyes still gleaming red, you want to flinch and hide from her. 

You know that red eyes mean power and anger and  _ hurt. _

And you know that your sister has always meant safe and home and  _ pack. _

You see it, sometimes, her soulmark, sharp shards of glass glittering in blue watercolor now, and you try very hard not to be afraid. 

~*~ 

You are afraid. 

You are lonely and afraid and as you become her creature, her weapon, you tell yourself it is for  _ her _ , for the  _ pack _ and not because you are terrified she will do to you what your last alpha did. 

~*~ 

Sometimes, you wonder if you have a soulmate, and if you do--what marks they bear for you. 

~*~ 

Laura is loud and arrogant and sweet. She calls you Uncle Peter and curls in your lap and smiles when you throw her high in the air. 

Derek is shy and cocky and smart. He follows you and runs his finger down your bare skin and curls against your side on full moon nights. 

Cora is tiny and precious and fierce. She snarls and snaps her teeth when you tease, and chases you through the preserve and when she hamstrings Derek, you think this proud vicious girl will be what you are and that your pack will be strong and healthy. 

~*~ 

Sometimes, you lose time. 

You lose time and your neck aches and you see Talia, her impassive gaze touched with sadness as she watches you. 

And you run from her, because you feel trapped and small, the way you felt when your alpha sank his claws in your belly and  _ ripped _ and you never wanted Talia to make you feel like that. 

~*~ 

You are twenty five and used to being alone, to your unmarked skin and the sidelong glances, to one night stands and invasive questions. 

You are used to it and even if you are not content--it is your life. 

You are twenty five and at peace, and a mark blooms, inky black and beautiful and terrible, across your skin. 

You stare at it, the mark you had accepted never having--five razor thin lines and a burst of fireworks behind them. 

You are twenty five and you have a soulmark. 

~*~ 

Three weeks later, your house burns and your pack with it and you go, screaming, mad, with one black soulmark to prove you are not alone in the world. 

 

ii.

 

Stiles was born on a dark Wednesday in April, and from the moment he was born, his skin was  _ covered _ in soulmarks.

Inky black overwhelmed his tiny pale body and sometimes, Claudia traced them, before John gently batted her hands away with a look that reminded her who those Marks belonged to and didn’t.

“They’re very pretty,” she said, wondering, as she watched her sleeping son, and John nodded.

Neither of them mentioned the inevitable tragedy of being Marked so thoroughly and so young.

~*~

Stiles used to sit in front of the mirror in his bedroom, clamber on the counter of his bathroom and trace the marks.

He loved them, the way they wrote stories across his body.

There was a sprig of flowers tucked into his elbow that his mama helped him look up and he found out was called aconite.

There was a bite mark, stark and clean on his clavicle, a perfect indentation of teeth and a drop of black blood.

There were claw marks, on his ribs and his thighs and his back.

Those were the ones he was born with, though, as much a part of him as the moles on his skin and his eye color and sometimes, Daddy looked sad when Stiles talked about his soulmate, but he didn’t think too much about it.

~*~

It’s when Stiles goes to school for the first time and sees the other kids—all of them with skin so bare it’s almost ugly—that he realizes how different he is.

It’s then he realizes that not everyone thinks it’s beautiful and amazing to be marked so young.

He comes home crying for a week straight, and stops wearing shorts and tshirts. That’s when Stiles starts wearing layers and starts worrying about his soulmate.

~*~

When Stiles is seven, Scott gets his first soulmark. Stiles has claw marks on his neck and a puzzle that fades into nothing on his torso and viny thorns wrapping up his legs, all new and worrisome and a secret kept even from his parents.

Scott spills into his room, eyes wide and frantic, all kinetic excitement and worry, and Stiles shifts, shoves his pants leg down from where he was tracing the new thorns, and gives his best friend’s wild worry and excitement his full attention.

~*~

He thinks a lot about what it means that his soulmate  _ needs _ him.

Because he knows—he started reading when he was four and by the time he was six, he was reading soulmate fairytales, sweet romances about platonic soulmates, stealing his mother’s romances.

By the time he was seven, he’d read every book in the library about theory, was subscribed to three academic journals and could debate with college students about soulmate theory.

So he  _ knew _ how it worked, knew that marks were made by need, that they could take any shape but told a story, both about the need and the person in need.

He doesn’t know what it means that his soulmate needs him so much. But he knows that as he watches his mother die, and his father fall apart—he knows that he doesn’t ever want to need someone the way that his dad needed his mom.

~*~

When Stiles is nine, he comes home to a house that is dark, and quiet. The lights don’t come on when he flicks the switch, and there is a scent of whiskey in the air. Distantly, he can hear his father crying.

It’s been almost six months since she died, and they’re falling apart. But as he stands in his dark, lonely home, his stomach aching, he realizes that he can’t  _ do _ this, on his own.

He crawls into bed and has his first panic attack and it’s only when he wakes up that he thinks—for the first time—maybe his soulmate has a mark too.

~*~

Three days later, Stiles gets another mark—a tiny black bottle spilling ink on his ankle—and his dad goes to his first AA meeting, and life goes back to normal.

Three weeks later, the Hale house burns.

~*~

There is a moment—just one, and Stiles wakes screaming—when every black mark on his body goes gray and ashy, and his heart actually stops for a moment.

And then it’s over, and he tells himself in the morning that it was just a nightmare, that it wasn’t real. There’s a new mark, a smattering that of black that blooms into scars on his chest and up his throat, and Stiles stares at that mark for a long time, panic clawing at him before he sighs and shrugs into a tshirt, pulling on a blue plaid. It’s not enough to cover the new mark—but he thinks maybe it’s time to stop covering them.

~*~

He doesn’t get a new mark for a long time, and he wonders sometimes what happened that caused the last one, and what changed. Sometimes he’d get flickers of color that bled away before they formed and it was a low ache in his gut, that he wanted those marks to take root, to stay to mark him.

~*~

When he is sixteen, Stiles takes Scott into the woods in search of a dead body—and werewolves change their lives.

 

iii.

 

You have three new marks, when you wake.

A splash of liquid flame on your ribs.

A rope knotted around your pinkie.

A star spotted on shards of glass.

You study them, and the tiny razor sharp lines lit by fireworks.

You wonder what they mean.

And then you dress, and go looking for your wayward beta.

~*~

Stiles is—intriguing. He smells like terror but his eyes are bright and furious.

He has a soulmark splashed on his neck, and it’s distracting, for a long moment before you focus on him and realize—all of Stiles is distracting. Pale, with color high in his cheeks, a plush pink mouth set in an angry line, eyes that snap and a sharp biting wit.

He’s beautiful and irrationally, you are furious that he has a soulmate, that he is marked by someone else.  You lift his hand to your mouth, and he—he trembles, and sways toward you, just a little and you bite down on your shock and hope and then—he rips himself free and you let him.

You aren’t sure why.

But later, when you’re burning, and Stiles rubs his palm anxiously and watches you with conflicted eyes—you wonder.

 

iv.

 

Stiles wakes up the morning after killing Peter, and his marks are gray.

Ashy and pale, fading to white, and he stares at them for a long time, before he runs into the bathroom and is messily sick.

~*~

Scott doesn’t notice.

It doesn’t surprise Stiles. Scott hasn’t noticed much in the way of his best friend since Allison Argent flashed her pretty dimples at him.

Derek does—he stares at Stiles, his eyes wide and startled. “Do you know who it was?”

Stiles stares at him, and Derek huffs. He yanks his jeans down, just enough to expose the curve of his hip and nestled there—the mark is faded and pale, ashy and gray. Two ballet slippers lay listless in a puddle of musical notes, and Stiles stares at it for a long time before he blinks up at Derek.

“Her name was Paige,” Derek says, quietly.

Stiles is quiet, and then, “I know who it was.”

~*~

They don’t talk about it.

And then people start dying—again—and they’re being hunted—again—and no one has time to comment on the soulmarks that should be black and aren’t. His dad lets him get away with far more shit than he should, and Stiles  _ knows _ it’s because of his dead soulmate, and he doesn’t know how to explain,  _ hey dad. I helped kill him. _

~*~

He loses weight and says it’s the kanima, the stress of the new betas, anything but what it really is—his soulmate is dead.

His soulmate is dead and he helped kill him.

He holds Derek up in a pool for two hours and wonders—if Peter was still alive, what kind of mark would that leave on his skin.

“He never said he was lonely,” Derek says, later that night, when Stiles is shakey limbed in his bed, and Derek crawls through the window. “But he was. We always knew. He’d have liked you.”

Stiles doesn’t answer for a long time, but then, “He offered me the bite, that night.”

Derek looks at him, until Stiles finally turns away and closes his eyes, and he wonders, while Derek sits next to him and he drifts off to sleep, if he had said yes—would Peter still be alive?

~*~

He’s drunk, and shaking, the aftereffects of that fucking hallucination leaving him weak as a kitten—and he realizes that there is black on his palm instead of ashy gray.

He stares at it for so long his eyes cross and his vision blurs and he realizes he’s crying.

Stiles calls Derek and then his dad, and then the hospital, and circles the city desperately  _ looking _ .

But there’s nothing there.

Nothing to say Peter is back—only his black soulmarks.

~*~

“Stiles.”

He thinks he should be more surprised than he actually is.

He stumbles into his room, not even bothering with the lights, and falls into Peter with a choked off cry.

“You  _ bastard,” _ he sobs and Peter laughs, breathlessly, before he kisses him.

 

v.

 

You hold him in your arms, and he’s quiet now, sleeping, his lips kissed red, a bruise bright on his throat. He’s thinner than you’d like, and his skin—his skin is a canvas of color. Bright red and dark blue, purple and orange and black and delicate hues of pink and yellow all twisting up to tell a story.

All the times you’ve needed this boy.

You are thirty one and tired and you have a soulmate.

You tighten your grip on him, claws delicate against his pale skin and he shifts, soothing a hand over your throat without waking, quieting the furious wolf in your gut and you sigh.

You are thirty-one and tired and you have a soulmate.

And you will die to keep him.

You will kill to keep him safe.

You kiss his hair and trace your fingers over the soulmark on his palm, liquid fire in searing orange, and remember watching him rub at it as it blurred into place.

You will kill to keep him safe—but you think. He will do the same.

“Mine,” you murmur and watch him sleep through the night.

 


End file.
